Lipid Nanocarriers for Treatment of Certain Types of Cancer

Abstract

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of death among women worldwide. It is considered a heterogeneous disease where magnetic resonance imaging studies have displayed that there are multiple growth patterns of breast cancer with different strategies of treatment. Among these phenotypes there are breast cancer over-expressing estrogen receptors while others with activated Ras or ErbB2 pathways are observed. Also, it has been documented that elevated levels of mevalonate synthesis lead to several types of malignancies; one of them is breast cancer. This investigation recruits the use of statins as one of the chemotherapeutic agents to treat breast cancer.

Statins are 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA (HMG CoA) reductase inhibitors. Statins inhibit HMG-CoA reductase which in turn inhibits the cholesterol biosynthesis. Consequently, depletion in mevalonate occurs together with its downstream products as isoprenoid intermediates leading to lower levels of lipid attachment sites for Ras, Rac and Rho proteins driving to lower cellular and subcellular pathways remarkable for cancer progression. Statins represent two classes: hydrophilic and lipophilic classes. The class responsible for inhibiting malignancies is the lipophilic one. Lipophilic statins